"We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe."
American Library Association
I had to take a college class in the journalism department that deeply impacted my perspective on the news. The curriculum was based on the Associated Press Stylebook. It is a standard reference full of interesting entries about important people and news subjects, common misspellings and grammar mistakes, and the differences in the connotation of similarly meaning words.
What struck me most, and I've continued to notice in every news report since, is that word choice can tell you a lot about your source. I originally thought that basic news-speak would be unbiased -- that journalism style would be directly aimed to show no preferences but report the straight news. I was young and naive.
The truth is that words really do mean things, and journalists understand all too well what they are saying. So when you hear a reporter talk about an "anti-abortion protester" and then refer to a "pro-choice protester" realize that those words are intended to directly influence your opinion.
I select abortion as an example because everyone has an opinion on the matter, and I've witnessed decades of blatantly biased handling of the issue in the news.
The word "abortion" has a negative connotation -- it evokes a negative emotion in people when they hear it, regardless of whether they are for or against abortion rights. Therefore, abortion rights proponents renamed themselves "pro-choice," which is a term mainstream news networks have respected since it was coined. At the same time, abortion rights opponents renamed themselves "pro-life," which is a term mainstream news networks use rarely, choosing instead the terms "anti-abortionist" and even "anti-choice" in their reports.
Our minds associate certain positive and negative connotations to specific words, of which news reporters and editors are supposedly trained to know the intricacies.
Such offenses of bias could simply be because, as Bernard Goldberg contends, "reporters, by and large, rub elbows with other elitist groups, not everyday Americans.... [T]hey don't know that the average American strongly disagrees with nearly everything the average journalist believes."
"No conspiracies. No deliberate attempts to slant the news. It just happens. Because the way reporters and editors see the world, the way their friends and colleagues see the world, matters." (italics added) (Bernard Goldberg, in Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News)
While elitism in the media is definitely a factor in media bias, personally, I think Goldberg is letting himself and his colleagues off too easily. As a journalism student I became disillusioned with my profession of choice when I was taught in basic reporting classes how to "interpret the news" rather than report straight news. I could have dismissed this concept in a feature writing class, but this is the textbook on how to report the news!
On the first page of "Interpretative Reporting," Chapter 1 The Modern Newsgatherer says:
"No longer do many editors and reporters pretend that the news does not involve their interpretations. Instead, they are conceding that interpretation is a fundamental part of all journalism and are trying, to the extent that time and their capacities allow, to make their interpretations intelligent, compassionate and illuminating."
Goldberg may well be correct in asserting that these biases come naturally to journalists, because it is an unquestioned part of their foundational training. Isn't it ridiculous to think that our news is unbiased when our reporters are taught to interpret the news at the news-gathering level? Regardless of whether bias is deliberate or subconscious, news facts are no longer facts when an interpretation is applied to them.
If journalists do not even recognize their own biases, let alone control them, then you, as the American citizen, must know your sources and understand the agenda behind them in order to discern the truth from the "interpretation." Mainstream media outlets still present their interpretations as straight news, and most people don't understand the mainstream media agenda well enough to know the difference.
When you consider where most of the general public's daily news is received, it's easy to see how people would make assumptions of fact when they've heard only a small portion of any story. Most of our news comes in blurbs between commercials on television and radio, in editorial commentary, in newsstand headlines and headline news shows, and flashed before your eyes in video footage spliced for time and sensational impact.
The best way to properly scrutinize your news is by reading it, as opposed to watching it on TV or listening to it on the radio. I refer to a lot of video clips from the news, especially when it proves them to be bumbling idiots, but I pay more attention to the articles than I do the actual clip.
When you are fed the news in a quick stream of interpreted "facts," you are unable to carefully scrutinize the word usage of your news sources to discern their perspective. Instead, you hear a short headline interpretation presented to you as fact, which often by mere brevity is only a fraction of the truth.
The best way to discern the truth is to know your source and your source's agenda. Don't let the news media push political correctness on you to the degree that you stop listening to the "unpopular" ideas. Political correctness is an oxymoron and a tool of fascism. In a free society, there is no correct opinion about people and politics.
Consider looking to interest groups for specific news on matters you care about. There is no question what agenda the National Right to Life or the National Rifle Association is pushing in their newsletters. You know what their agendas are; therefore, you know where their bias lies.
These groups:
- Provide grade-cards for politicians informing you which politicians support their interest and which are against it, based on their voting records;
- Closely follow and report on lawsuits and court decisions that affect their issue;
- Scrutinize the process of proposed legislation that affects their interest;
- Send action alerts that let you know when relevant bills are proposed and under vote; and
- Report on the votes and statements of politicians in both parties as they apply to their issues.
To be fully informed on any issue, consult sources on both sides (opposing and promoting views) of each issue you follow. Here, it gets convoluted, for two reasons:
- Mainstream networks already paint the news in a liberal picture, so consulting Planned Parenthood about an abortion bill may seem superfluous after you've read an article about it in, for example, The New York Times.
- The largest liberal interest groups do not overtly display themselves as liberal, and they do not represent the groups their titles suggest.
The America Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) appears to be a promoter of all civil liberties in general ("Because freedom can't protect itself"). However, the organization's stances on religion, as well as anti-immigration-laws, show the ACLU promotes a deeper liberal agenda and ignores conservative issues within the Bill of Rights altogether. To be more fully informed on judicial cases defending civil liberties, consult ACLU news as well as the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) for conservative legal perspectives of cases the ACLU won't address.
Whatever your issue of interest may be when it comes to politics and government, multiple sources from multiple viewpoints are a necessity in discerning the truth today.
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